Tag: audio

audio, not a book

Not a Book: Wild Things

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Happy Sunday everyone, and after my mega run of Sunday posts about theatre visits, I’ve got a change for you today – a podcast.

The full title of this is Wild Things: Siegfried and Roy and it’s an eight part series about the German magicians and illusionists Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn. They were famous for using big cats in their shows in Las Vegas. Their careers ended when Roy was attacked – and nearly killed – by one of their white tigers during a show at the Mirage. Now I’m not going to lie, I remember the attack happening – and the many National Enquirer headlines about the duo, so I was shocked to realise that it happened in 2003. Time is a flat circle etc.

Anyway, Wild Things isn’t a new podcast, it came out in 2022 – it’s just I only found it recently, probably because it’s being turned into an Apple TV series starring Jude Law and Andrew Garfield. Although the podcast does go into detail of what happened on the night of the attack, it is a profile of their entire lives and careers – starting in wartime Germany through their meeting on a cruise ship in the 1950s and their development of a double act together, initially on cruise ships but the moving to the nightclub circuit and then to hotels and Las Vegas. It also probes the duo’s much repeated claims about the safety of their act through the years and efforts to protect the brand after the attack.

I listened to most of the series back to back across about three nights and then had to take a bit of a break as it got to the grim details of the tiger attack. But that’s because I’m squeamish more than anything and it’s quite graphic and I didn’t want to have nightmares about angry tigers! It’s got good access to some of the people who were close to (as in proximity) the duo as well as people who were involved in the investigation into the tiger attack. As someone who primarily knew about Siegfried and Roy as a punchline (different sorts of punchlines before and after the attack) or from the aforementioned National Enquirer headlines I found this really interesting – they come out of this as three dimensional people – outrageous in their public personas, who inspired loyalty in the people that worked with them but also flawed and contradictory. If you’ve got a long journey coming up, this would make a great listen.

Happy Sunday!

books, not a book

Not a Book: Cabin Pressure

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I went to see John Finnemore try out new material this week for his current Radio Four show, and it reminded me that I haven’t written a proper post about Cabin Pressure, my favourite ever radio sitcom and surely one of the best of the last 20 years (at least). So today I’m righting that wrong.

Cabin Pressure follows the exploits of MJN Air, a charter plane company (“I don’t have an airline. I have one jet. You cannot put one jet in a line. If MJN is anything, it is an air dot.”) and its employees as they fly the world on Gertie (so named for her registration – G-ERTI) on an incredibly tight budget, taking any job to keep the business going. Four people work for the airline – Carolyn the owner and chief stewardess, First Officer Douglas Richardson, Captain Martin Crief and Carolyn’s son Arthur general dogsbody and steward.

The set up is great, the joke count is incredibly high and the cast is amazing – John Finnemore created and wrote it and plays Arthur, but Martin is Benedict Flipping Cumberbatch and Douglas is Roger Allam who has been in all sorts including Game of Thrones and the original Javert in Les Miserables. Oh and in the later series it has Anthony Stuart Head aka Giles from Buffy.

There are 27 episodes each named after a different city and taking you the whole way through the alphabet – the first episode is Abu Dhabi and the final two part special is Zurich (part one and two). I’ve got the giggles just thinking about my favourite bits just writing this post. As I mentioned a few years back in my audiobooks post, we have a habit of listening to these on long drives on holidays. Or at least we did before Him Indoors got into Amelia Peabody! Anyway when we drove past Ottery St Mary on our holiday last month all I needed to to was message my sister a picture of the road sign and the words Weasels King Henry and she replied Hedgehog O’Brien and sometimes all you need is some in-jokes and people to enjoy them with and listen to cabin pressure and you’ll understand too. Last time we were down there we stopped there just so I could have my picture taken with the sign:

And now I’m making about as much sense as Arthur when he’s trying to describe his dad so I should probably stop and tell you that you can get Cabin Pressure on Audible and other audiobook platforms and it’s really worth it. Even the audible sample is funny.

Have a great Sunday.